Law Society to tackle lack of female and BAME managers at top of organisation

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Law Society: developing a diversity and inclusion programme

The senior management of the Law Society does not reflect the diversity profile of the rest of the organisation, new figures have shown.

With every law firm and chambers in England and Wales having to report the make-up of their organisation to their regulator, the society will also be publishing a diversity profile of its 300 staff in January.

The latest figures, the society’s management board will be told this week, show that two-thirds of staff are women, while 23% are from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background (BAME). However, the majority (56%) of those in the most senior management grades are men, and just 6% from a BAME background.

A spokesman said: “The Law Society is developing a diversity and inclusion programme to promote the growth of a more inclusive organisation. We aim for an environment where people from diverse backgrounds can contribute to the success of the organisation, and achieve personal success.

“As a responsible employer, we monitor and publish our data in respect of the whole employee cycle. We are considering initiatives which would address any patterns of disproportionality. Examples of such initiatives include a review of our recruitment process end to end, the development of a leadership training programme for senior management, a management development programme that focuses on equipping managers with the skills to manage diversity better, and a possible women’s leadership programme.

“These initiatives will enable us to attract candidates from a more diverse pool of people and to improve our development and promotion of staff within the organisation so that we can retain and promote staff who bring a wealth of experience, knowledge and skills to our organisation.”

Every firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority is required to collect diversity data on their firm’s workforce profile, report the aggregated data to the SRA using the new online reporting facility by 31 January 2014, and publish a summary of the data.